Gene Kerrigan

Danny Callaghan is getting his life back together. Out of prison after killing a man who was beating up some boys who had ridiculed his weight at the golf driving range -- it turns out the man was locally connected -- Callaghan just wants a quiet evening in the bar when two hoodlums walk in intent on killing Walter Bennett. Callaghan intervenes, temporarily saving Bennett's life, but that puts his own in the cross hairs.

This Irish crime novel is just about as dark as it gets. One interesting note was that the IRA could be used by the crooks as cover for their misdeeds.… (mais)

A brisk and entertaining crime novel that touches on events in Ireland surrounding and beyond the specific story.

Amidst the downturn in the Irish economy as a result of the collapse of the Celtic Tiger a well-planned robbery occurs, the investigation of which is complicated by machinations inside the Garda.

A tainted yet principled detective goes above and beyond to solve this and related crimes, helped partially by a nun who was involved in the church scandals. At times, it feels as if outside events are dragged into the story merely to acknowledge their existence, but the plot isn't dragged down too much by their presence.… (mais)

The blurb on this is misleading—the "desperate plan to save the collapsing rebellion" was never put into action and occupies maybe ten pages of this otherwise engaging popular history. Gene Kerrigan pieces together a patchwork overview the events of the 1916 Rising in Dublin from the various personal testimonies of those who were there.

While some of the big names feature—Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly—Kerrigan focuses his account mostly on a relatively small group, the F Company of the Irish Volunteers. It's no surprise, given his background in journalism, that Kerrigan has a keen eye for the vibrant detail: the hungry fighter pausing to consider whether it was permissible to eat a ham sandwich on a Friday; the loose horses careening down O'Connell Street; the men careful to shave before their executions. These help to make very human a moment in Irish history which is often mythologised and twisted for political purposes. We're taught about plaster saints in school, not that one of the signers of the Proclamation had to be coerced to do so because he found the idea of equal rights for women repugnant (my money's on Pearse), or that several of the leaders sat around on the first day of the Rising wondering what they would do if they actually won, and whether or not they should ask a Prussian prince to become king of Ireland.

This isn't an academic history; there are no footnotes, a fact which would normally irk me a great deal. Kerrigan's incisive humanity and insistence on democratic coverage made The Scrap a compelling read for me regardless.… (mais)

Just for the character of Harry Synnott the book is worth reading. His recognition at the end regarding his failings comes dramatically and brutally, and I was left to ponder whether he would be able to deal with his self-realization. And then something happened. The story stopped suddenly so that I felt like I'd gone hurtling over a cliff. I had to check to make sure there weren't any pages missing in my tablet!

But when I came to think about it, I think the way the story ended is much more effective, because I was left wondering possible life paths for the characters.

In this book even the most despicable characters can convince themselves they are somehow doing the right thing, even when we know that it isn't the case.

This story is a good case to demonstrate what I’ve always felt. One of the distinctive pleasures of reading Crime Fiction or Speculative Fiction (or SF if you prefer) lies in its awareness of its own traditions and conventions. That's the beauty of it in my view. Is the best genre fiction intrinsically inferior to the so-called "literary" fiction? Not so. There's crap on both sides. A lazy writer can simply follow the genre conventions by the letter. The exceptional genre writers (SF or Crime Fiction) must be looking to subvert my expectations,ie, using the established frameworks to explore new territories or themes. Those are the writers I always look for (eg, Jo Nesbo comes to mind with his ability to constantly undermine my assumptions about characters and their motivations: he kills off central characters in the middle of his stories, for christ's sake).

This is my 2nd Kerrigan. He dolled out just the right amount of information to keep me hooked, but wasn't so stingy that I got to the end thinking he hadn't played me fair, which I was...

Gene Kerrigan is on the verge of becoming one of my favourite genre writers."… (mais)